Watching the Wire: May 17-22

May 16, 2011

Yo, yo, yo, what it is. Sorry about the delay I know all four of you out there were dying for this post to get up, but I was a bit busy earlier today. Here are last week’s results, along with the total stats from both weeks so far:

Pitcher

Decision

IP

H

ER

BB

K

ERA

WHIP

Carmona

ND

7.2

6

4

2

2

4.69

1.04

Pineiro

W

7.2

8

2

1

5

2.34

1.17

Hammel

LL

13.1

13

10

5

10

6.75

1.72

Buehrle

W

6.1

7

3

3

6

4.26

1.57

McCarthy

L

7

5

3

2

6

3.85

1

Total

4 wins

78.2

65

35

22

52

4

1.1

Even though the results were pretty hideous overall, there were some bright spots here. McCarthy had another good start; we still got two wins; and had three WHIPs under 1.2. Here are a few streaming options for the upcoming week. Be lucky that I didn’t post this earlier and put Vin Mazzaro on here.

Jake Arrieta, Friday vs Washington – Arrieta hasn’t allowed more than three runs in a start since April 9th, and has only allowed 30 hits in his last 42 innings, while striking out 21 in his last three starts (19 innings). As a team Washington is only batting .225 this year, and .219 over its last six games. Jayson Werth is leading the Nationals in average…at .238.

Bartolo Colon, Wednesday vs Baltimore – Colon had a bad start last week, but it’s forgivable because it was against the Rangers in Texas, so no big deal. He rebounded nicely against Boston on Friday, giving up only two runs in six innings. Now he gets to face Baltimore, which has been hitting well lately, but is scoring fewer than four runs a game at home this season.

Scott Baker, Saturday vs Arizona – Baker’s in the middle of a start right now against Seattle and has five K’s in five innings so far. Minus a bad last start against Detroit in which he walked five, Baker has a 5:1 K:BB in his last five starts while not allowing more than two runs in any of those starts (not counting the Detroit start). Baker’s got good K numbers over his last few starts, and Arizona has the sixth highest strikeout total among all MLB teams. Baker doesn’t beat himself by walking a ton of guys, and he’s shown he can strike out a good number of batters in any given start. Roll with Baker against Arizona’s lower-third MLB batting average.

Chris Narveson, Thursday vs San Diego – The Padres have been on a tear lately, scoring 50 runs in their last six games, batting .318 over that span. But after a rough start against Cincinnati on April 25, Narveson has a 17:5 K:BB and just over a 3 ERA. But while San Diego has been hot lately, they’ve still only scored 54 runs in 21 home games, and are batting .206 at Petco.

Brandon McCarthy, Wednesday vs Minnesota – The lucky winner this week is McCarthy, who gets to go against the majors’ worst offense. B-Mac had a solid start last week against Chicago, giving up three runs in seven innings while striking out six. Now he gets to face a team in his own pitcher’s park in Oakland that’s only scoring three runs a game on the road. The Twins have scored 37 runs and are hitting a combined .227 with seven homers in 12 May games.